Stalag VIIA In September 1939, a prisoner of war camp Stalag VII-A was built to accommodate 10,000. The General Command of the Military District VII in Munich chose this site between the Isar and Amper rivers.The first prisoners arrived on 19 October 1939. They were initially housed temporarily in tents. In the hall of an adjacent fertilizer factory a delousing station was built. From 1940 additional barracks were built and by the summer of 1940, the area of ​​the camp had grown to 350,000 m². Poles and Ukrainians were initially in the camp mainly housed. After the Western Campaign of 1940 French (and soldiers of Polish units in France) were increasingly deported here followed after the attack on the Soviet Union by a large number of Soviet prisoners. By the end of the war, the number of passengers grew to 80,000 at (including 200 generals alone); they were used in surrounding industries, in agriculture and in industry. Tens of thousands of prisoners of war were housed in subcamps and labour detachments around the area. About 2000 German guards of the 512. Landeschützen-Bataillons were stationed in a separate barracks area. Due to the presence of the camp the entire surrounding of bombings spared.By early 1945, the number of registered prisoners had grown to more than 80,000 - many working in regional industries and farms. It is likely that the presence of this camp close to the town centre spared it from large-scale bombing. On April 29, 1945 the camp was liberated by a unit of the 14th Armoured Division of the United States Army under General Charles H. Karlstad, wherein the ordered transfer of the camp occurred almost without a fight. The site was converted into a detention center for 12,000 German civilians held accountable for their activities during the period of National Socialism- the "Civilian Internment Camp No. 6". The camp was
released by the Americans in 1948 and served to house German refugees
exiled from eastern areas. It became a new part of the town, named
Moosburg-Neustadt. Three remaining guard barracks were included in the Bavarian monument list on February 15, 2013.

The entrance to the camp, and the town itself shown in the background

Moosburg Stammlager VIIA, 1945. Pictures from Edward J. Paluch 780 Bomb Squadron. From Fall 1944- Feb 1945 interned in Stalag Luft III. This town about 20km from where I live was the site of Stalag VII A, a POW camp covering an area of 85 acres which also served also as a transit camp through which prisoners, including officers, were processed on their way to another camp. At some time during the war prisoners from every nation fighting against Germany passed through it. By the time it had been liberated on April 29 1945, there were 130,000 prisoners from at least 26 nations on the camp roster. It was thus the largest prisoner of war camp in Germany.Moosburg an der Isar (eller Moosburg a.d.Isar) er den ældste by i Landkreis Freising Regierungsbezirk Oberbayern i den tyske delstat Bayern. Den ligger 45 km nordøst for München halvejs mellem Freising Landshut i Niederbayern, omkranset af floderne Isar og Amper. Den internationale Flughafen München Franz Josef Strauß er kun 15 km væk og nåes let ad motorvej A92 der passerer byen. Geografisk er byen præget af de mange bække, floder og kanaler i området. Ud over Amper munder også floderne Sempt, Strogen og Dorfen ud i Isar.

Moosburg concentration camp warden from the video game Death to Spies: Moment of Truth, where he wears an armband signifying he's from the 5th ϟϟ Panzer Division Wiking. In the centre is Oberst Hans Nepf, Lagerkommandant 1939-1943, and his succesor Oberst Otto Burger.

The cemetery of the camp was situated here in the south-western outskirts of Moosburg, an area called Oberreit, among whom 22 or 23 buried were British. From 1946- 1958 the mortal remains moved to central cemeteries before finally being closed in 1958 when 866 bodies were exhumed and reburied at the military cemetery in Schwabstadl near Landsberg. The bodies of 33 Italians were reburied at the Italian Memorial Cemetery near Munich. In 1982 the Moosburg City Council purchased a plot at the site of the old Oberreit cemetery and erected a wooden cross with a simple stone remembering the dead of Stalag VII A.

In the autumn of 2014 on the 75th anniversary of the opening of the camp, this historical marker was relocated at the site, its façade covered by this bronze plaque but steel helmet remaining above.

Today the municipal authorities have seen fit to place a dog association right next to it...

...whilst in the town itself this memorial, the Heimatvertriebenen, from 1958 commemorates the Germans' suffering; by 1950 1,931 out of 8,677 Moosburg citizens were refugees fleeing the Soviets. On the right are views down the same road, Sudetenlandstraße, then and now.

Today there are still vestiges of the original barracks being used, and along Schlesierstraße

Nearby in front of St. Pius church on land devoted to serve as a memorial to the prisoners of the stalag is this fountain, the Stalag Gedenkbrunnen, which had been created by a French prisoner in 1942 and set up in 1963.

The West and South entrances to St. Kastulus during the 1930s and today

At the foot of the Johannes tower on Thalbacher straße in a 1935 photograph and today. The rental office across the narrow passage from the tower was demolished that year.

Hitlerjugend in 1937 and the site today- at the other end of the square is the war memorial shown on the right with Bürgermeister Dr. Müller in front of the memorial on March 10, 1940 and today, the Nazi flags being replaced by the red ensign

Moosburg railway station in 1935 and now Landstraße

Photo developer Georg Reindl driving the first car in Moosburg- a Kolibri- in 1908 on Weingraben

Auf dem Gries in 1936 and during the 2016 Herbstshau and looking the other direction in a watercolour by Valentin Ott just before the war.

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One of the oldest gable-topped houses in Germany shown in a colourised photograph taken just after the war, and as depicted in a 1941 sketch by a French prisoner of war interned in Stalag VII A.

My favourite Pub on Herrnstraße, formerly a bakery, and looking the other way towards Herrnstraße 293, the second building on the right, where the Jewish administration was housed after the war from January 1946 to February 1951. At the end of the road is the town hall.

When
the Allied forces conquered Germany, they were able to liberate some
tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners. Between 1945 and 1950, however,
the former Third Reich became a temporary place of refuge for about
200,000 Shoah survivors. Besides the prisoners freed from the work and
death camps, these were people who had fled from the Nazis to Russia,
fought in Eastern Europe with the partisans, or in some other way
managed to survive underground. Starting in the fall of 1945, the US
military government set up special Displaced Persons (DP) camps for
them. For a short time, the US General Eisenhower had even considered
allowing the Jews to set up their own territory in Bavaria. This plan
had been proposed to him by David Ben-Gurion, who was travelling through
occupied Germany at that time. However, a Bavarian Jewish state was
never established. Nevertheless, the Americans conceded wide-ranging
rights of self-determination to the Shoah survivors. The British,
Russians, and French granted no such privileges. Supplies, too, were
more plentiful in the American zone, and so about 85 percent of all
Jewish DPs settled here, considering their residence, however, as but a
temporary measure. The overwhelming majority believed that their future
would only be guaranteed in a country of their own, convinced that “only
Eretz Israel will succeed in absorbing and healing them, help them
regain their national and human balance.” As the state of Israel would
not be established until 1948, some Jews dreamed also of a new life in
the USA, Canada or Australia.

The birthplace of Josef Furtmeier (born September 3, 1887), one of the mentors of the White Rose , especially Hans Scholl. Sophie Scholl referred to him as "the philosopher."

From the end of 1918 until May 1, 1919 he was a member of the Communist Party, and in the spring of 1919 he took part in a communist demonstration at the Justice Palace in Munich. This, and the fact that he refused to use the Hitler salute nor joined any Nazi organisation, led him to be fired in October 1933 on the basis of the law for the restoration of the professional civil service. Up until 1945 he lived in Moosburg and Munich, receiving a pension which was small compared to his last salary. From mid-1941 Hans Scholl got in touch with Josef Furtmeier about Carl Muth and Alfred von Martin. Sophie and Hans Scholl met regularly with Furtmeier. Concerning a conversation on June 4, 1942 with Furtmeier, Sophie Scholl reported: "... a three-hour, uninterrupted and exhausting conversation was held." After the arrest of the leading members of the White Rose, Furtmeier was held by the Gestapo from February 28 to March 20, 1943. Furtmeier stated after the war period how he had talked with Hans Scholl about the legitimacy of the murder of tyrants. In May 1945 he was appointed mayor of the city of Moosburg and began investigations into former members of the NSDAP and against Nazi divisions. At the commemorative ceremony for the victims of the White Rose in 1945 in Munich, he gave a speech alongside Romano Guardini. In 1946 he joined the SPD. After 1949 he tried two times to obtain a promotion as compensation for his dismissal in 1933. This was denied him by the ministry which claimed that he had been already adequately compensated. He is buried in the family grave at the cemetery in Moosburg shown here on the left.

Also buried in Moosburg (next to a memorial to those killed in the air bombing) is Koloman Wagner, born April 15, 1905 in Sünzhausen. In 1943 he worked at the Driescher firm producing war materiel when Joseph Goebbels gave his Sportpalast, or total war, speech to a large and carefully-selected audience on February 18 1943 calling for total war, as the tide of World War II had turned against Germany. His colleague, Maria Huber, testified in court that following the speech Wagner repeated Goebbels's question "Do you want your men to come to the front; do you want the total war?" and responded with a sarcastic "yes" before stating that this has "signed your men's death sentence." She went on to say in her denunciation that the female workers were ashamed by his attitude, especially given the number of prisoners of war working alongside them. The Nazi mayor of Moosburg at the time, Dr. Hermann Müller (whose portrait hangs today in the town hall) declared that "Wagner is, in my opinion, a man who threatens public morale through his attitude and lifestyle." Even after the supportive testimony of the company's management which had testified how Wagner had been responsible for labour-saving innovations, his fate was sealed. The Attorney General reported to the minister of justice the enforcement of the judgement on July 27, 1944: "The execution process lasted 53 seconds from leaving of the cell; eight seconds from his handover to the executioner until the fall of the axe. No other incidents or other events of importance occurred."

Nearby is the grave of Heinrich Hiermeier. An active member of the communist party since 1931, he was first imprisoned by the Nazis and held under 'protective custody' in Moosburg from March 10 to May 3, 1933. He remained an antifascist- it had been reported to district authorities in January 1936 that although publicly Hiermeier had abandoned his earlier attitude, it is clear to his work colleagues that he "does not agree with the current system." By the end of that month he had been arrested again and on June 23 appeared before the Higher Regional Court in Munich for apparently planning a treasonous activity before being sentenced to two years and four months at the penitentiary. It's not clear if was released the end of his sentence on June 23 1938 but he is recorded as having died in a camp, possibly one that had used 1000-1200 forced labourers in the Obersalzberg to work on one of the gigantic construction projects at the time. Nor is the nature of his death, recorded on his grave as having been February 19, 1940, other than he had supposedly been crushed by scaffolding which led to a skull fracture, internal bleeding and fracture of neck vertebrae.

The bridge that was the main strategic objective
in the battle between Patton and the German SS in Moosburg. The
Germans eventually bombed the bridge in order to keep the American
tanks from crossing it. The battle didn't last long, regardless, and
the 10,000's of POWs in the prison camp there were soon liberated.

Next to the bridge is the Gasthof zur Länd, shown in 1941, April 29, 1945 with Major-General A.C. Smith of the 14th Armoured Div. of the 3rd U.S. army overseeing the building of the auxiliary bridge over the Isar by the 300th Combat Engineers, and 73 years later.

About 30 km south of Landshut is the tiny town of Dorfen, its Marienplatz shown here during the Nazi-zeit and today.

Erding

Nazi rallies, marches and demonstrations in Erding

Looking down Landshuter Strasse, comparing the view after the war and today.

On April 18, 1945, Erding was devastated in a bomb attack in which 144
people were killed, many due to an earlier, mistaken all-clear warning
which lured people into the open air. Shortly after 15.00 relatively
small American bomber group consisting of about a dozen planes arrived
from the direction of Hohenlinden. Air-raid sirens had sounded at 12.15
for the first time. At 12.55 a pre-warning siren sounded followed at
13.35 by another. At 15.00 the radio broadcast a pre-warning for the
city of Munich but a subsequent all-clear signal sound led many who had
sought shelter in their basements to come out. By this stage of the war
air-raid alarms was an everyday occurrence in Erding as the constant
threat of airborne traffic had been accepted. With the Americans already
in Nuremberg and along the Danube, most waited for an end.
Nevertheless, at 15.20 came the short but deafening noise of the
bombing. After a few seconds houses had blown away with the destruction
especially strong in the south-eastern part of the city between the
railway station and Hagervorstadt. Roughly 50 ten-tonne bombs were
dropped. 126 people were killed immediately by splinter, flying building
parts, air pressure or under the masses of their collapsed houses with
18 more succumbing to their injuries later.

The Stadtturm beside the remains of the church

On
Haager Straße the greatest damage was reported as was the number of
killed is highest. The pressure of the detonations destroyed roofs and
windows in the Innenstadt- on the Schrannenplatz the pharmacy and the
Lehner house burned as shown in the photo above. It had taken days of
work by mountain commanders to dig up the buried people. To make matters
worse, electricity and water were left non-existent for days. The dead
wee first placed on the roadside in Hagerstrasse, then brought to the
heavily damaged city parish church. The coffins had been stacked on top
of one another for reasons of space. Many other towns in Bavaria were
bombed that day- Freising, Rosenheim, Dillingen, Augsburg, Neuburg an
der Donau and Traunstein. Erding's city archivist, Markus Hiermer,
observed that the "flying fortresses" of the US air forces on April 18
should not have actually thrown their cargo over Erding- "An attack on
Pilsen was planned, but it was blown off course. They did everything
they could to get rid of their bombs." Nazi air defences had already
collapsed in the final phase of the war. Nevertheless, Americans and of
course the RAF needed to bombard small towns like Erding to break the
Germans' last resistance. Thus the attacks were no longer of strategic
importance, but it was seen as an appropriate response to the relentless
bombing the Germans had happily initiated and continued against
civilian populations from the start of their war, particularly against
British cities. On April 30 German troops were returning through Erding
with the last squad passing ordered to destroy all the bridges. Only the
Freisinger bridge, under which the power lines run to the power plant,
was spared because the master of the works, Georg Pfab, convinced the
responsible officer that Erding could not be allowed to sink into the
dark. A day later, American soldiers entered Erding from the
already-taken Eitting: "After this blaze of fire, the 34th Regiment
stormed Erding at 8 am, and at 11 am, the city was in American hands,"
according to a military report from the US Army. When the American tanks
arrived at Erding on May 1, winter returned with snow covering the
rubble. On May 5, 1945 Army Group G signed the capitulation order in
Haar near Munich ending the area's war.

Many of the photos of Erding during the Nazi era come from the town museum, shown here before the war and today with its mural still intact, during its special exhibition focussing on Erding's 80-year-old aviation history of the site.

Wartenberg

Now the Gasthaus Bründlhof, from a 1940 postcard when it was the Tirolerstube and had a photo of Hitler gracing the wall.

Landsberg am Lech

Alte Bergstraße hasn't changed much

The town is noted for its prison where Adolf Hitler was incarcerated in 1924. During this incarceration Hitler wrote/dictated his book Mein Kampf together with Rudolf Hess. His cell, number 7, became part of the Nazi cult and many followers came to visit it during the German Nazi-period. Landsberg am Lech was also known as the town of the Hitler Youth. Following World War II it was the location for one of the largest Displaced Person (DP) camps for Jewish refugees and the place of execution for more than 150 war criminals after 1945. The Landsberg camp began as a Nazi concentration camp. By October 1944, there were more than 5,000 prisoners in the camp. The camp was liberated on April 27, 1945 by the 12th Armoured Division of the United States Army. Upon orders from General Taylor, the American forces allowed news media to record the atrocities, and ordered local German civilians and guards to reflect upon the dead and bury them bare-handed. After the liberation of the camp it became a displaced person camp. Consisting primarily of Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union and the Baltic states, it developed into one of the most influential DP camps in the Sh'erit ha-Pletah. It housed a Yiddish newspaper (the Yiddishe Zeitung), religious schools, and organisations to promote Jewish religious observance. Tony Bennett was one of the soldiers who liberated the camp. A dramatisation of the discovery and liberation of the camp was presented in Episode 9: Why We Fight of the Band of Brothers mini-series. A number of prominent leaders emerged from the camp, including Samuel Gringauz, who also became the chairman of the Council of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the U.S. zone. The camp also served as the headquarters for the Jewish education and training organisation ORT. The camp closed on October 15, 1950.

Shown in 1938 with a banner with a large swastika hanging from the roof when the structure served as a memorial to Hitler's incarceration, after the war when holding Nazi prisoners and today. Forty
miles west of Munich, this is where, in 1924, Hitler spent 264 days
incarceration after being convicted of treason after the failed
Munich Beer Hall Putsch the previous year. During this time Hitler
dictated and then wrote his book MeinKampf with
assistance from his deputy, Rudolf Hess. Hitler had taken the cell
that had held Anton Graf von Arco-Valley who had murdered Bavarian
prime minister Kurt Eisner in February 1919.

Conditions
were not actually so bad in this ‘cross between a spa hotel and a
barracks’. Wooden partitions were erected to give the prisoners
privacy. They were allowed to mix to such an extent that Hitler
dictated Mein Kampf while there, and received visitors freely. Party
insignia were hung from the walls and other Nazis stood to attention
before dinner when Hitler entered the hall and took his seat. Perhaps
helped by the singularly mild rules of the institution, Hitler was
regarded by the warders as a model prisoner. Upon Hitler’s release in
December 1924, the prison governor said that if anyone could save
Germany, it would be this man.

The gaol on December 30, 1924 after the release of the putschists and as it appears today. From the left are Gerhard Hoff, Walter Hebel, Hans Eduard Krüger, Julius Schaub and Rudolf Heß. The original caption recorded how the car came courtesy from Landsberger alderman and landowner Franz Strobl who met them upon their release. During the occupation of Germany by the Allies after the war the prison became designated War Criminal Prison No. 1 to hold convicted Nazi war criminals, run and guarded by personnel from the United States Military Police (MPs). Between 1945 and 1946, the prison housed a total of 110 prisoners convicted at the Nuremberg trials, a further 1416 war criminals from the Dachau trials and 18 prisoners convicted in the Shanghai trials conducted by the American forces in Japan between August 1946 and January 1947 to prosecute 23 German officials who had continued to assist the Japanese military in Shanghai after the surrender of Nazi Germany. In just ovr five years Landsberg prison was the place of execution of nearly 300 condemned war criminals with 259 death sentences carried out by hanging and 29 by firing squad. Today the prison serves as a progressive correctional facility that provides training, skills and medical help for prisoners.

After his release, Hitler posed outside the town's Bayerntor, built in 1425. He returned to pose in 1934 after taking power.

The 'Hitler-Zelle'

From 1937 to 1945 the prison cell at Landsberg am Lech became the third central site of pilgrimage next to Munich , the "City of the movement" , and Nuremberg , the "City of the Party Rallies." Its slogan during the Third Reich was 'Landsberg - Town of youth' and became known additionally as the meeting place of the Hitler Youth- Following the party rallies of 1937 and 1938 delegations of the Hitler Youth marched across the German Reich as part of the "confessional march of the Hitler Youth" to Landsberg . It would culminate with swastika flags, banners and Hitler Jugend torchlight rallies at the Landsberger main square and in the atrium of the fortress prison. In the words of Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, Landsberg was a "pilgrimage of German youth" and the "station of National Socialist education." The gaol with its "Hitler cell" was to be converted into the largest youth hostel largest of the Reich. The plan also saw the creation of a gigantic parade stadium, which would have had greater dimensions than the entire historic old town. As German troops invaded Poland September 1 1939 , the "Adolf Hitler march " was cancelled following the " Party Rally of Peace". As early as 1933 the city Lech marketed with all its available resources itself as the "Hitlerstadt" or "Stadt des Führers"and "Birthplace of the ideas of National Socialism." This "Hitler tourism" brought economic recovery and by 1938 100,000 tourists visited the 'Hitler cell.'

From 1933 onwards, the city marketed itself using various sobriquets: Hitler City, City of the Führer, National Socialist Site of Pilgrimage and Birthplace of the Ideas of National Socialism.
In 1938, 100,000 visitors came to Landsberg, most incorporating a
glimpse of Hitler’s former prison cell into their tour. Eventually, the
town received the official honorific City of Youth, because it welcomed thousands of Hitler Youth members in 1937 and 1938 for massive Adolf Hitler marches.
The delegates also visited the prison – which had plans to become the
biggest youth hostel in the Reich – and received a copy of Mein Kampf
as a souvenir.

The Hauptplatz on September 19 1937 during a rally of Hitlerjugend and today

From the film „Der Marsch zum Führer" showing Hitlerjugend marching to commemorate Hitler's
imprisonment in Landsberg am Lech, the final rally in
the main square of the city and the address of the Reich Youth Leader Baldur von
Schirach. Unlike the earlier Leni Riefenstahl Nuremberg documentaries, it does not focus on the Party congress itself, or on Nazi leaders, who are not shown until the very end of the film. Instead, it follows HJ boys from various parts of Nazi Germany beginning their journey, camping along the route, being taken in by helpful families on the way and marching through cities in formation, saluting and carrying the swastika banner.

The "Schöner Turm" bedecked with swastikas in 1937 and today

as is the statue in front of the rathaus although here covered by the banners of the Hitlerjugend The Mutterturm seems to have had a fresh coat of paint recently

Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm

Adolf-Hitler-Platz in front of the town hall bedecked with Nazi flags as shown on the cover of Pfaffenhofen unterm Hakenkreuz by Reinhard Haiplik, now in its third edition. As Haiplik reveals, in the Reichstag election in 1933, the NSDAP achieved its highest election result in Oberbayern with 43.1 percent of the votes in Pfaffenhofen- "indeed by far." As early as 1923, some of Hitler's adherents from Pfaffenhofen had participated in the so-called "Marsch zur Feldherrnhalle," otherwise known as the Munich beerhall putsch. Some SS men from Pfaffenhofen made a career, most notably Anton Thumann. Between 1933 and the end of the war in 1945 there was a lively support of the ruling regime among the citizens of the city. In this edition Haiplik was especially concerned about the subject of war criminals: "I wanted to name the perpetrators and keep the memory of the victims." In his newly-written chapter titled "Victims of the Holocaust - Individual Destinies of Murdered Pioneers," Haiplik devoted his focus to Jewish families, some of whom lived in Pfaffenhofen for decades and became victims of the Holocaust. Earlier Haiplik had previously written that there were probably no Holocaust victims from Pfaffenhofen; he has since determined that several Jewish families lived in Pfaffenhofen until the 1930s before being sent to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to be murdered.

Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now, renamed Hauptplatz, with the rathaus on the right

The Brauerei Bortenschlager sporting the Nazi flag and today, a K&L clothing shop.

Karl Riemer spent the entire time of its existence, from 1933–1945, in the Dachau concentration camp. He fled from the camp on April 26, 1945. He succeeded in getting through to Pfaffenhofen, some 50 kilometres away and already in American hands, by April 29. The American town commandant there assured him immediate help for the prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. Karl Riemer was unaware that the order for liberating the camp had already been given on the morning of his arrival.

Ingolstadt

Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now.

Adolf-Hitler-Platz seen from both directions, the effects of the war clearly seen

The
Bavarian King Ludwig III visiting Fort Prinz Karl (what is now the Polizeimuseum) during the First
World War. During the Great War future French president Charles de
Gaulle was detained here as a prisoner of war. Construction of the fort began in March 1877 and completed n August 1882 at a cost of almost 1.7 million reichsmarks. During the First World War, the fortress and others served as prison camps. The reason why it was not demolished like all other fortresses after the Second World War can only be guessed at but, given it stored large amounts of ammunition, the Americans were concerned that in the event of an explosion the neighbouring village of Katharinenberg would have been destroyed. Thus, Prince Karl was the only German fort to be completely preserved.

The portal of the Liebfrauenkirche

Theriesenstrasseseen from the church

The entrance to the new schloss then and now. Nearby at the end Tranktorstrasseis the Hotel Zum Anker where I stayed.

The former Platz der SA is now inaccessible

The
Kreuztor, the seven-turreted guard tower which, with the
Feldkirchnertor, are the only ones of the city's four principal gates
that survive today, the latter as part of the castle complex.

The bridge over the Danube before the war and after its destruction by the SS on Thursday, April 26 as the American army reached the north bank of the Danube.

Eichstätt

This Hitler Jugend haus, completed in 1938, is still a Youth Hostel.

The cathedral in 1936 and today. During the Nazi era, Bishop Konrad Count von Preysing was the only Catholic bishopric of Germany to turn against the Reichskonkordat, which was agreed by the Holy See and the Reichsregierung in 1933. Between 1939 and 1945 was located in the eastern suburb of Eichstätt the prison of war Oflag VII B. In addition Eichstätt was from October 1944 to January 1945 location of an outside storage of the concentration camp Flossenbürg. In the town area of Eichstätt there was no significant damage to war by Allied attacks, as opposed to the surrounding municipalities and cities.

The Willibaldsbrunnen shows a remarkably unchanged marktplatz in large part
thanks to the town's youth: "The brave boys instantly got their hoses
and connected to the water, and it was a real pleasure to see the Pimpfe and Hitler-Jungen rush to the fire" according to the Eichstätter Heimatzeitung on
March 13, 1943. Already in July 1940 the party announced: "7000 Hitler
Youth are under the fireman's helmet." The average age was 16 years. The
training lasted for six months, and the youth learned to operate all
fire equipment, "so that they can collaborate with experienced
firefighters at each deployment."

Westenstraße with Saint Walburg church in the background

The Willibaldsburg and Hofmühle appear to have survived the war unscathed.

Along the canal looking towards the Altmühl

The remains of the Eichstätt Thingstätte, built 1935

Mühldorf

In the course of the so-called 1918 November Revolution, a workers 'and soldiers' council was formed in Mühldorf. On the evening of April 25 1919 Mühldorf was also occupied by a group of Spartakists; five days later the insurgents were brutally disarmed and arrested by government troops. Hitler gave a speech to 5000 here at the Mühldorfer Rennbahn in June 1931. His followers, including Ernst Rohm, were all dressed in white shirts as a march in the Braun shirt had been banned in the run-up. In 1933, the Mühldorf town council made Hitler an honorary citizen. As in the rest of the country, under the Nazis anti-Semitic measures began in Mühldorf although there were only two Jewish families in the city- the Michaelis family and the Hellmann family. Fritz Michaelis, a bearer of the Iron Cross as well as the wounded badge, had to close his business in April 1937. Horse merchant Hellmann was able to pursue his business until 1938, but finally had to close after being attacked in the pages of Der Sturmer. Nevertheless the city remained spared from the November pogroms in 1938. In 1944, the construction of a huge secret bunker complex for the production of the Messerschmitt Me 262 began, outlined below. In March 1945, the war came to Mühldorf for the first time- on March 19, 700 American planes, including 250 B-24 bombers, dropped 6,000 bombs over the city, mainly above the railway station, one of the largest transhipment stations in Bavaria, killing 129 people, including numerous children. A month later, on April 20, bombs were dropped again over the city and killed fifteen citizens. The two attacks destroyed about 40% of the entire residential area, numerous commercial and industrial plants as well as 330,000 m² of track systems, the real target of the attacks. On 25 April the forest camp was cleared and the prisoners removed. Around 44 American air personnel are thought to have perished during the
return flight following one of these raids. Civilian casualties are
believed to be much higher due to many aircraft crews being unable to
identify their primary objectives. On May 2, American troops from the 47th Panzer Battalion of the 14th Division finally reached the city from the west. Mayor Gollwitzer was able to convince the Mühldorfer combat commander to refrain from defending the city, surrendering the city to the American battalion commander without any struggle. However, withdrawing German troops still blew up the bridge. After the war, 480 prisoners from a mass grave of the forest camp were buried at the concentration camp concentration camp in Mühldorf. On the day of the funeral, on June 2, 1945, a large part of the population, men, women and children had gathered in response to the US military administration, horrified by the disinternment of hundreds of corpses whose coffins had been opened for inspection , The inhabitants were ordered to the cemetery, which was surrounded by tanks four times in June. The memorial stone on Ahamerstraße speaks only generally of victims and does not mention that they were murdered concentration camp prisoners.

Due to increased activity of British and American bombing, Germany was forced to concentrate on fighter aircraft and the regime ordered all factories still producing bombers to immediately begin production of defensive fighter aircraft through what was known as known as the Jaegerprogramm. Under this plan, it was envisioned that the bunker in Mühldorf, once completed, would produce over 900 of the new Messerschmitt Me-262 jetfighters per month. To ensure this figure, the production of various Me-262 parts were to be divided amongst local workshops within the region. For example, the bunker here in Mettenheim was tasked with producing the engines and airframes while the final production and assembly would take place in the Landsberg bunker. From there, the aircraft could use the makeshift runway to take off and fly to their destination.

Germany’s civil and military engineering group, the Organisation Todt, planned and organised the secret project which was called "Weingut I". A project of this scale required a large workforce. At the beginning of 1942, the Germans had forcefully recruited millions of people from occupied territories to work as laborers in the German armament industry. The man in charge of this was Fritz Sauckel, Generalbevollmaechtigten fuer den Arbeitseinsatz. Alone the bunker in the Mettenheim would require at least 8,000 workers. Organisation Todt supplied the engineers, management and master chiefs whilst the majority of the 10,000 labourers were composed of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates from Dachau. Concentration camp inmates were classified as Hilfsarbeiter and "paid" 60 Pfennigs an hour at the end of each month; in fact, the inmates never saw the money.

Despite the massive visible damage on the only surviving arch (twelve were originally planned), the structure permits some insight into the construction techniques used to build it. The original plans called for the bunker to be 400 metres in length from east to west. A single semi circular roof arch was to measure 33 metres in width and was separated from the next arch by a 30-centimetre gap, which was to be covered as soon as the bunker was completed. The entire width of the bunker arch was 85 meters. The thickness of the roof was precisely 3 meters to which another two metres of concrete were to be added upon completion for a total thickness of five metres. The top layer of the roof was to be covered with earth to promote tree and plant growth which would serve as natural camouflage against enemy aerial reconnaissance. A 5 metre thick wall was planned to cover both entrances which would add safety in case of air attacks and ground fire. Once the concrete foundations were planted, gravel and earth were shovelled over the closed Entnahmetunnel and foundations to help in the shaping of the arches. As soon as this was completed, the semicircular mound was smoothed and flattened and then covered with a 10 centimetre-thick layer of concrete.

Long metal rods were then inserted into the think concrete layer to act as the starting point for the three meter thick bunker roof. Most of the cement was created at the nearby cement mixing sites. Pumps pumping liquid cement were also employed in the building process. It was originally planned that the bunker would have eight internal levels. Plans were also drawn up to add stairs, elevators and more pillars for added structural support although such plans were never realised given the war situation. By the end of April 1945, only seven arches had been completed due to disruptions in the supply of materials, air raids and lack of skilled workers.

The bunker itself was never bombed by the Allies. American troops reached the Inn River on May 2, 1945 and occupied the bunker and appropriate construction sites. Interestingly enough, the Americans allowed the involved firms to reclaim their equipment – possibly as means of reparations. In the summer of 1947, the Americans began placing explosives inside the bunker and parts of the nearby air raid shelter for demolishing purposes. After numerous tries, the Americans finally succeeded using 120 tonnes of dynamite. It was found that the bunkers' arches were collapsed.

From 1982 to 1983, a rumour began to circulate that there were still Wehrmacht supplies of a chemical nature being stored in the bunker. Only after an extensive cover-up did the government finally, in 1987, remove these chemicals. Under pressure from various groups, the bunker was eventually added to a Bavarian list of historic memorials which did not stop the Bundesfinanzministerium in 1991 from proposing to destroy the bunker site. Despite massive protests, demolition work took place in 1995-1996 with the tearing down of the nearby air raid shelter ruins. Due to this incident, the future existence of this historical site is questionable.

Weilheim

Adolf-Hitler-Platz then and now

NS-Kreistag
at the site on June 16, 1938 showing from the left NS-Kreisleiter
Hausböck (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, NS-Kreisleiter Dennerl (Weilheim),
Stellv. Gauleiter Nippold and Gauleiter Wagner.

Otto Hoffmeister Haus, used as a youth hostel during the Third Reich

The Vier-Jahreszeiten-Brunnen at the former Adolf-Hitler-Platz and today

Rosenheim

It
was at the Marienbad Sanitarium in Rosenheim that Hermann Wilhelm
Göring was born on 12 January 1893. The photo on the right shows the SA
marching during the the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish-owned
businesses. Their signs read: "Germans shop in German stores! The Jew
is stirring up hate against Germany! Therefore, do not go to Jewish
stores!" The
number of Jews living in Rosenheim was high compared to other Bavarian
cities. However, at the start of the 20th century, the Jewish community
consisted of about 50 people. The request to the city council for
establishment of a separate Jewish religious association, with reference
to the Bavarian-Jewish legislation, was refused, so the Rosenheim Jews
remained attached to the state capital, where their dead also had to be
buried. Even the funeral of the First World War fallen son of a Jewish
merchant based in Rosenheim at the city cemetery was refused and was
"the biggest disappointment and the bitterest pain" for the father.
With the creation of the first local Nazi group outside of Munich in
1920, the Rosenheim Jews saw increasing hostility. Centre of hate
campaigns was the Rosenheim School. A scandal occurred in June 1920, after a reader accused the writer of a letter entitled 'Rosenheimer Jews' who wanted to repeal the provisions of the Versailles
Treaty and hold military exercises at the Rosenheim School. Seven
members of the high school and a member of the "Chiemgau" then raided a
villa inhabited by Jews in the Herbststrasse. Rosenheim's college on July 29, 1920 came to the conclusion that "... it was regrettable that the people's movement to fight exploitative Jews[...], which certainly was justified in its nature, has been discredited."

Protests
of the Bavarian Jewish Central Association were unsuccessful, only an
unmistakable message of the Bavarian Interior Ministry September 1920
was able to maintain peace. On April 1 1933, shortly after the Nazi
seizure of power, guards were set up in front of Jewish shops, warning
against buying in these stores, but to desist assault and criminal
damage. A large proportion of the population ignored these calls. The
shops were therefore still frequented, much to the annoyance of Nazi
activists who acted with the backing of then-Mayor Gmelch. Despite the
support of the population, six of the eleven Jewish business owners gave
up their businesses by 1937. The assassination of German diplomat vom
Rath by the Jew Herschel Grynszpan on November 7 1938 in Paris, was
taken as a final opportunity to strike against the Jews. The SA came on
10 November at 3–4 o'clock in the morning with 8 to 10 men to the last
two Jewish shops and destroyed their inventory and merchandise. The
fate of many Rosenheim Jews is documented. Those who could, emigrated -
mostly in the United States. However, many failed in their entry and exit
applications and would end up murdered in concentration camps.

SA
marching during the Party Congress in Rosenheim on 1 September 1929
with the same site on Max-Josefs-Platz today. The number of Jews living
in Rosenheim was high compared to other Bavarian cities. Although the
Jewish community at the time of the turn of the century included about
50 persons, the application for the founding of a separate Israelite
cult association was denied by the municipal authorities with reference
to the Bavarian legislation on the Jews, so that the Rosenheim Jews
remained connected to the state capital and bury their dead there Had
to. Even the funeral of the son of a Jewish merchant in Rosenheim, who
died in the First World War, in the city's cemetery, was not allowed "to
the greatest disappointment and pain" of his father. At the latest
with the founding of the first Nazi locality outside Munich in 1920,
the Rosenheim Jews were increasingly exposed to hostility. Thus, in June
1920, the scribe of a reader's letter reproached the Rosenheim Jews in
the local press for betraying the Entente's military exercises against
the provisions of the Versailles Treaty at Rosenheim Gymnasium. Seven
members of the Gymnasium and a member of the "Chiemgau" fell upon a
villa inhabited by Jews in the autumn road, but they could not storm. On
July 29, 1920, the Collegium of the City of Rosenheim decided that "...
it was unfortunate that the movement to fight a popular Jewry [...],
which is certainly justified in its nature, will be discredited by such
excesses." Protests Of the Bavarian Israeli Central Union remained
unsuccessful, and an unmistakable communication from the Bavarian
Ministry of the Interior of September 1920 could restore peace. Within the scope of the November
pogroms of the Reich, the SA entered the last two Jewish shops between 3
and 4 o'clock in the morning on November 10, 1938, and destroyed
inventory and goods. The fate of numerous Rosenheim Jews is documented.
Who could emigrate - mostly to the USA. However, many entry and exit
requests failed and many were assassinated in concentration camps.

Hitler
giving a speech to a crowd on the 15th anniversary of the NSDAP chapter
in Rosenheim, the first major NS Ortsgruppe to have formed outside
Munich, at Max Joseph Square on August 11 1935.

Hitlerjugend during Kriegstag in 1942.

From the beginning of bombing raids on
German cities in the spring of 1942, Rosenheim was not spared. In
November 1943 there were shelters for only 650 people for a city
population of approximately 22,000. However, by February 1944 shelters
had been built for about 6400 people and in conjunction with other
shelters a total of 10,525 people could be protected. During 14 bomb
attacks, 201 people were killed and 179 injured. The focus of the air
attacks was the railway station and the railway tracks, as Rosenheim was
an important transportation hub between Munich, Salzburg and Innsbruck.
The neighbouring communities of Ziegelberg, Stephanskirchen,
Westerndorf St. Peter and Oberpfaffenhofen were also hit. The first air
attack on October 20, 1944 at lunch time from 12:47 to 13:17 O'clock with
over a hundred aircraft, dropped 1,000 bombs, leaving 27 dead and 59
wounded. The heaviest air raid took place on 18 April 1945. From 14:40
to 14:55 around 200 to 1300 aircraft dropped bombs in the area around
the station, resulting in 53 dead and 36 injured, in addition, this
attack also made 800 people homeless. The station building was almost
completely destroyed, railway tracks were destroyed over a length of 20 kilometres.
The last air attacks were made on April 19 and 21, 1945. During the war
the majority of at least 173 duds were recovered. In 1964, the Oberbayerische Volksblatt reported that the approximate location of 38 undiscovered unexploded ordnance was known.

The Flötzinger
Bräustüberl, where Hitler spoke on April 21, 1921. The photo on the left
shows owner Franz Xaver Simson in front of the window the year before.
He celebrated his birthday here in 1925. Ten years later, after an
operation to remove a polyp on May 23, Hitler spoke here for the first time on August 11, 1935. The
NSDAP chapter in Rosenheim was celebrating its fifteenth anniversary;
it was the first major NS Ortsgruppe to have formed outside Munich. Hitler made use of the opportunity to rail against his domestic
opponents and to support current action being taken against Stahlhelm
members and former Centrists.

Niedernfels

Now the Franz von Sales School, a state-recognised private primary and secondary school in the pedagogical centre in Niedernfels Castle west of Marquartstein in the Chiemgau, during the Nazi era it served as the so-called Gaufhreschule of the Gaus Munich-Oberbayern.

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